'Weird Al' Talks About His 'Sick and Twisted' Music Parodies

The comedian and musician on everything from his early days to Robin Thicke to finally becoming beloved

"Weird Al" Yankovic is very busy. In the midst of the rollout for his new album Mandatory Fun, the musical satirist has been releasing a video for a different song every day for the past eight days, ending today. As with previous releases, he skewers recent or current popular songs. Some of the artists he sends up on the new album are Lorde, Iggy Azalea, Pharrell Williams, Imagine Dragons, and Robin Thicke. On Friday afternoon, toward the end of his "Weird Al Week," the comedian, musician, and, it's fair to say at this point, American treasure spoke to us about the new album, his songwriting process, how his rock parodies started, upcoming tour plans, Robin Thicke, long-hair grooming tips, and his Cold War Christmas classic.

ESQUIRE.COM: This is a big week for you. Congratulations. You have a lot going on with all the videos coming out.

"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC: A lot of fans are already depressed because "Weird Al Week" is going to end. "What are we going to do when we wake up and there's not a new Weird Al video?"

ESQ: It's hard to believe you've been doing this for over thirty years. What has your songwriting process been over the years, and has it changed at all as music and technology have changed?

I try to learn all their musical idiosyncrasies and try to do something that sounds like them and yet is a bit more sick and twisted.

WAY: My sensibility and my process have remained fairly constant over the years. I like to think that I've gotten better at what I do. I spend more time and pay more attention to detail album after album. But pretty much it's stayed the same. My process for the parodies is that I get an idea for a song and then get approval from the artist and then go in and record it and probably try to get it out as soon as possible. With originals, most of those are style parodies or pastiches — and for that I mean I do original songs in the style of other artists, where I try to learn all their musical idiosyncrasies and try to do something that sounds like them and yet is a bit more sick and twisted.

ESQ: Do you lament the way pop music has changed in that it's become more slickly produced, it seems less and less about actual musicians playing instruments and more and more about a team of producers and multiple songwriters with samples? Some of these pop songs have 10 or 12 credits for a single song!

WAY: Yeah... You know, I don't want to pooh-pooh modern pop. I appreciate that as well, but my personal favorite kind of music is guitar-based rock. I like grunge and garage bands and alternative music, but that's more my personal taste. Having said that, I enjoy all kinds of music. But it is kind of strange nowadays when I do parodies, instead of setting up drums and guitar amps, my band comes in with a digital disc and says, "Here. I did this on my synthesizer last night. Here's my part."

ESQ: You have a band...

WAY: I have a band. I've had exactly the same band. I've had the same drummer since 1980, and the same guitar and bass player since 1982. The guy that tours with us as a keyboard player has only been with us for 22 years. So he's the new guy.

ESQ: How do they fit into your process?

WAY: Well, when we do the parodies, there's no rehearsal because I get each of them a copy of the CD or the original song and basically I say, "Okay, we're gonna change the key to this, this is going to be the edit, this is going to be the tempo, and we'll see you in the studio!" We don't need to do demos because we already know exactly what it's supposed to sound like. Doing originals is a lot more traditional because I'll do a demo for those and then we get together and rehearse and we do a band demo, and then we go into the studio. There's a lot of tweaking along the way because there are thousands of decisions that need to be made to figure out how the song is supposed to sound because we're not working off of a template the way we do with the parodies.

ESQ: The band is an integral part of your live show.

WAY: Absolutely. They've been with me on the road since the '80s. We've done a couple thousand shows and they're amazing. I can't say enough good things about my band. I feel very fortunate that I found them when I did, very early in my career. Not only are they just great, nice guys; they're some of the best musicians you're likely to find. They do everything from gangsta rap to polka music and every genre in between. It's amazing.

ESQ: Do you have any plans to tour for this album?

WAY: We do. I made the decision last year that I would not tour at all this year, but in 2015 we will definitely be doing the "Mandatory" tour. It's going to be a big one and we're going to try to blow it out. We don't have any dates set up and we don't exactly know when it's going to start. We just have kind of a vague notion that there's going to be a big tour next year and as soon as we have anything confirmed we're going to start posting the dates on my website.

ESQ: On your past tours you've done multiple costume changes, specific to certain songs. You really put a lot into your live show. It's like going to see Cher or Rihanna. Is that something you plan to continue?

WAY:[Laughs] Yes, I've always done a very theatrical live show and we try to make each tour bigger and better than the last one. So I'm sure the next time will be a lot of costume changes and maybe video bits on a big LED screen. We try to make it very theatrical with a lot of production value with never a dull moment. I try to give people their money's worth.

ESQ:Mandatory Fun came out on Tuesday, July 15, and every day you have been releasing a new video for a different song, with eight videos over eight days. The video for "Word Crimes," a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," had well over 6 million views on YouTube in the first three days alone.

I found that those parodies [of 'Blurred Lines'] were about the song itself, making fun of the song's misogynistic lyrics and sort of 'rapey' overtones. So I figured that the song deserved a parody where we focus on the properties of grammar.

WAY: Obviously I picked songs that were huge hits, number one on the charts and getting a lot of radio play, and Robin Thicke's song was no exception to that. That was the big summer hit of 2013. A lot of parodies had already been done for that and I was well aware that I wouldn't be the first person to do a "Blurred Lines" parody. You know, I also found that those parodies were about the song itself, making fun of the song's misogynistic lyrics and sort of "rapey" overtones. So I figured that the song deserved a parody where we focus on the properties of grammar. I don't think that's been done before.

ESQ: You're getting quite a lot of support for that.

WAY: I've definitely got the support of grammar nerds the world over now.

ESQ: Have you parodied a song you didn't like?

WAY: I wouldn't say that. I mean, my own personal tastes don't really have an effect on whether it's a parody target or not. But having said that, I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I'm working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life. So I try not to pick songs that I know would drive me crazy.

ESQ: You're so well-known for your parodies, but you're a trained accordion player and a talented musician. How do you identify yourself? Are you a funny musician, a comic who plays music, both, or something else?

When I started out, I didn't feel like I was really accepted in the music or comedy communities, and I was somewhere on the edge, but now I feel like I'm accepted in both, which is extremely gratifying.

WAY: [Pauses] I don't like to label myself. I know I'm very hard to pigeonhole. Back when there was such a thing as a record store, I really didn't know where to go to find my section in the racks. Is it comedy? Is it rock, is it pop? I kind of fall between the cracks. So I don't know. I do a lot of different things, sometimes at the same time, and it's very difficult to figure out where I fit. The nice thing is that when I started out, I didn't feel like I was really accepted in the music or comedy communities, and I was somewhere on the edge, but now I feel like I'm accepted in both, which is extremely gratifying.

ESQ: The accordion is your instrument and how you started your career. What can you say about the accordion to educate people, and how did you come to it?

WAY: It has many ethnic roots and has been co-opted by a lot of alternative bands over the last few years. It is a very sensual instrument, but it was never thought of as being particularly hip, especially in the '60s, which is when my parents decided I should take accordion lessons. I guess instinctively they just knew that eventually I would be at the forefront of America's polka-rock movement. They had some kind of vision for me, I'm quite sure. Either that or at the time they were thinking that when you play the accordion you're a one-man band and you can be the life of every party. In reality I found that it was difficult to get into my friends' rock bands when I was a teenager. They somehow didn't see the need for an accordion player. That's when I realized that I had to find my own path in life.

WAY: Oh sure! Yeah! I cut my teeth playing rock songs on the accordion when I was a teenager and my friends always thought that was extremely amusing. I think that was the genesis of my polka medleys, because every rock song I played on the accordion just sounded like a polka and my friends thought it was funny. So that was a joke that I continue up to this very day.

ESQ: I want to ask a question about your style. What is your secret to maintaining long hair, for a man?

WAY: [Laughs] Don't cut it! Just let it grow out of your head!

ESQ: So no special hair products to maintain volume and shine?

WAY: You know, I do use product in my hair from time to time, but I couldn't even tell you what kind it is. It's basically whatever bottle my wife has in the shower and I'll just use that.

ESQ: Any personal style tips?

WAY: Always wear clean underwear!

ESQ: Great advice! So you're at the end of a 32-year-long record contract with this new album. How does that feel?

WAY: Well... It feels good to be done. My record contract lasted longer than most home mortgages. When I signed my record deal in 1982, it was a ten-album deal. At the time I was working in a mailroom for minimum wage and I just laughed and said, "Yes, like I'm ever going to have ten albums!" Later my contract got extended twice to 14 albums and now finally, Mandatory Fun is the last album on the contract. So it's very exciting because now my options are completely open. I could do pretty much anything I want to.

ESQ: Would you just release singles instead?

WAY: Yeah, that seems like it's probably the way to go. I'd like to be able to be more topical and timely and more of-the-moment and I think the way to do that is, instead of waiting until I have twelve songs to release all at once, just to release them as I come up with them.

ESQ: Very often when an artist reaches the end of a deal with a record company, the company will put out some greatest hits or B-sides and rarities collection after the fact. Is there any unreleased material that the label owns that might see the light of day?

WAY: No. No B-sides or songs in the vault. I do my editing in the concept stages. I'll have a bunch of ideas for songs, but then I'll pick my twelve favorites. I'll write those, record those, mix those songs, and they all wind up on the album and there's nothing left over. There are no "Weird Al" songs left in the vault. So if the label [RCA Records] wants to continue releasing packages, they'll have to put out things like "Weird Al" Songs That Start with the Letter "R"! [Laughs]

ESQ: [Laughs] I think one of your most excellent and beautiful songs is an original: your Christmas song, "Christmas at Ground Zero," which came out in the '80s, during the Cold War. I hear it every year at least a few times on the radio between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it seems as ubiquitous as any Christmas standard. At least it is in my area. Did you think it would have that longevity, especially after the Cold War ended?

WAY: Well, it's amazing. It's nice and I'd like to stress here for the record, in case it confuses anybody: "Christmas at Ground Zero" is not in any way, shape, or form about 9/11. I wrote the song in 1986, so ground zero is referring to the center of a nuclear blast. At the time it was still very controversial because my label didn't want me to put it out as a video because they somehow didn't feel that a song about nuclear annihilation would be very popular during the holidays. But because of my twisted sense of humor, I funded the video myself and made sure that it got out to the world.

ESQ: So now that the last video is out, what happens next for "Weird Al" Yankovic?

WAY: Probably a little more press, then I'm going to be taking a vacation at the end of the month. I'm going to be on an island for a whole week so I'm going to try to do as much as we can before that happens. Even though people have only been aware of this album for the last month or so, we've been working on it for a couple of years, so I'm in need of some unplugging. Basically now we've kind of lit the fuse and the bomb is going off and we'll be reacting, because all of a sudden we're being inundated with offers and people are getting excited so we're drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Now we have so much stuff coming at us we can barely keep up and we're trying to do as much as we can.

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